Rotorua writer reflects on quiet act of forgiveness after loss

Kindness can appear in the unlikeliest moments, writes Lifang Chen. Photo / 123RF

It was one of those early-summer afternoons in Rotorua when the air hummed with cicadas and the lake light shimmered through the trees. Even the dogs looked too lazy to bark. Locals hardly notice the sulphur in the air any more; it’s just part of home.

I was sitting in the passenger seat while a friend drove along one of those quiet Rotorua streets – lined with leaning letterboxes and half-mown lawns. Then, out of nowhere, a chubby ginger cat must have decided to cross the road at exactly the wrong moment.

The brakes came down hard, but too late. A soft thud. Then silence.

We pulled over straight away and got out. The cat lay still on the warm tarseal, its ginger fur catching the afternoon light. No collar. Its coat was too soft; too cared for to belong to the streets – someone’s pet, once loved and safe in a warm home somewhere. The air felt heavy, the way it does when a small thing ends and the world keeps going, unchanged.

A car turned into the nearest driveway. An older woman and her son stepped out. The man went inside, came back with a shovel, and gently lifted the cat. The woman stood quietly beside us, her hands trembling a little, but her face composed.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “We didn’t see.”

She gave a small, kind smile – that quiet Kiwi kind of smile that forgives before you ask.

“It’s not your fault, love,” she said softly. “The cat shouldn’t have crossed the road without looking.”

Her voice wavered, but there was no anger – just grace. We’d interrupted her afternoon, yet she was the one comforting us.

After a moment, she turned back toward the house, walking slowly behind the fence where her son had gone. Before disappearing from view, she lifted a hand – a small wave that somehow felt like goodbye.

For a while, no one spoke. A tūī started up again, the breeze moved softly through the trees, and a thin veil of geothermal steam rose from a drain, catching the sunlight before it faded away.

We eventually walked back to the car, both quiet. The road shimmered behind us, and life went on – as it always does.

That evening, the sunset over the lake glowed the same soft golden as the cat’s fur. I could still hear the woman’s voice – gentle, forgiving, impossibly kind.

Whenever I pass that same street now, I find myself slowing down – almost without realising it. There are new houses and tidier gardens, but the memory of that ginger cat – once loved, once home somewhere – always returns, along with the image of the woman who forgave two strangers on a quiet summer afternoon.

As I move through this town I call home, with the warm air rising in gentle steam, I often think back to that day – how kindness can appear in the unlikeliest moments, soft but steady, like breath returning after sorrow. It doesn’t take away the loss, but it changes its shape, turning hurt into something gentler, something that stays. Like the mist that drifts through Rotorua, forgiveness has no sound, yet it lingers in the air – quietly, completely, as if it had always been there.

Rotorua’s Lifang Chen shares her experience as a Chinese New Zealander living here.